Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [281]
"I've no idea," Maslin said crossly when I speculated aloud. "Elua! Does your mind never stop chewing over every last little question?”
I smiled. "Far more often than Phèdre would like, believe me.”
Inside, it wasn't long before we learned the answer, or at least a portion of it. We'd arrived at the regular dinner hour when all the brethren of Miroslas were served. The silent guide showed us to a chamber where we might leave our gear, then escorted us to the hall. There was no sign of the Rebbe, but the long tables that had been empty when I'd first dined there were filled with rows and rows of men of all ages, Vralian and Habiru alike. The only thing they shared in common were their sober black robes and their silence, although it was a charged silence, and our presence rendered it all the more so.
There was one fellow who was different. We were seated beside him at the end of one table. He wore some sort of soldier's livery; a heavy red tunic over black breeches and boots. There was a flared cross in black worked on the breast of his tunic, over his heart. He was hunched over a steaming bowl of meat dumplings, but he glanced up when we sat, his blue-grey eyes widening with an undefinable emotion.
"It is a sign," he murmured in Rus.
"Of what, my lord?" I asked quietly.
Our Habiru escort placed one finger against his lips and shook his head, motioning us to silence. His face looked troubled. I wondered why. Was it us or the rider?
Once Maslin and I had finished eating—which took a good long while, the dumplings were as good as I remembered and I was twice as ravenous—our escort rose and beckoned to us. We followed him. The soldier watched us go, his gaze unblinking.
Rebbe Avraham ben David was awaiting us in his private chamber. It was a spare, simple room. There was a cot, a rug on the floor and a fire in the hearth, with a trio of plain wooden chairs arrayed before it. There were no adornments. He rose when we entered. He looked older than he had …when? Six weeks ago? Two months? I wasn't sure.
I bowed. "Shalom, Father.”
Maslin bowed, too, but said nothing.
"Is it done?" the Rebbe asked me in Habiru.
"Yes." I faced him without flinching.
He sighed. "By both of you?”
"No," I said. "I was alone.”
"Sit." The Rebbe pointed to the chairs. We sat. "How was it done?”
I glanced at Maslin. "My lord, is there any other tongue in which we might converse? One my companion might share?”
Rebbe Avraham smiled wryly. "I think not, child. I was a younger man in the Flatlands, and I speak the low tongue, Skaldic and Habiru, and I have learned Rus. Your companion was silent here before. Let him be silent now. How was it done?”
"As Berlik wished," I said. "I sent him to his gods.”
"Ah." He was silent a moment. "I had hoped the solace he found in Yeshua's mercy might guide him.”
"It did," I said. "It guided him to the center of his own heart. Father, Berlik cherished what he learned in Vralia. He kept Yeshua's cross on his wall to remind him. He said …" I cleared my throat. "He hoped it was not importunate to consider a god a friend, and that if there was any god who would not mind, it was Yeshua ben Yosef, who is there for all the lost and broken people of the world. But Berlik was a leader of the Maghuin Dhonn, and a great magician. For the sake of his people, he made a bargain with their god to let his death pay the cost of their broken oath. And he believed it was answered." I paused. "If there is a kernel of truth to what his people believe, they are old, my lord. Very old. They speak of following their diadh-anam, the Brown Bear, from beyond Vralia to Alba when the world was covered in ice.”
"And you believe this?" he asked.
"I believe what I have seen," I said. "I do not know what it means.”
"I wish he had